


Memorise Your Casket, Your Mother Patterns

by voidtap



Series: Make my messes matter! Make this chaos count! [2]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Existential Angst, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Speculative, briefly mentioned, tagging both alads for relevancy again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidtap/pseuds/voidtap
Summary: The lack of the constant drone of Infested voices leaves enough space for Alad V to realise what he's gotten himself into.
Series: Make my messes matter! Make this chaos count! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848832
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Memorise Your Casket, Your Mother Patterns

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of self-harm are in the middle of the fic, and purposefully vague. Even so, take care of yourselves.
> 
> The title of this comes from the song "Racehorse: Get Married!" by Jordaan Mason & The Horse Museum, a song that always makes me think of Alad during this arc of his story. It's mostly the reason why I wrote this.
> 
> Once again, not beta-read.

The derelict ships Alad V walks through during his time as a Pillar hardly have a surface left untouched by the gentle, relentless technocyte he's become a part of. It's even rarer that he finds intact living quarters in the ship that he can get a proper look at himself in. He takes every chance he can get to see himself, to see the beauty he's turned himself into, to see how wonderfully he's been invited into the Hivemind. He hears his strain keen for him, like child to their father, and he basks in how  _ proud _ he is to be a part of something as beautiful as this.

This time, he looks at himself and hears... silence.

The silence lets him see clearer.

He can hardly open his left eye due to the overgrowth, distorted and monstrous- unlike the other side of his face, still as clear as it was before his introduction. He can't help but wince at how the spines across his shoulder blades shift under his skin, scratching together like a fractured bone. Without the constant reassurance of his own strain, of Lephantis, of Jordas and Phorid, the reality of Alad's situation is unfiltered, and it is  _ horrific. _

Alad can't help but dry heave at the feeling under his skin, his sinewy claws scratching into the countertop under the mirror he stares at. He knows he's on his way to a panic attack, he's had them enough to know the onset. He just keeps looking into his constantly twitching and writhing form and shudders at the thought of its permanence.

_ You made this choice. You are beautiful. _

Alad can only choke out a quiet sob at the intruding voice of Lephantis, its presence just a bit too late to fix what it had missed. The Mutalist Pillar struggles to stay standing from the waves of regret and pain and  _ pointlessness _ that hits him, He catches himself before he falls to his knees and lets himself sit on the infestation-webbed floor with a tear-filled cringe.

Where was his strain? Where did the love go? Did he do something wrong?  _ What was he without this? _

The lack of an answer to his final question is what sets off a chain reaction. Alad sinks into his seated position, letting himself choke out spore-filled sobs. His breath catches in his chest, his attempts at breathing becoming shallow and quick. He can feel his arms and legs buzz, slowing at the chest, before he resorts to biting and clawing at himself to drag himself pitifully back to reality. The metallic taste of Orokin-Corpus blood snaps Alad back, the feeling of the self-inflicted wounds grounding the Pillar, and before too long, he can hear his strain again.

Alad can't listen to the cacophony of voices, all worried for the wellbeing of their Pillar, without wincing from their tone.

He knows how many lives he has left, and the fact that one has been spent in a place like this makes him shake.

He looks at himself in the mirror again.

He tries to imagine his old living quarters, on Jupiter's Gas City, with Zanuka close and normality closer. He tries to imagine the sounds, the droning of machinists, the quiet conversations of his employees. He tries to imagine himself, unmarred by the technocyte he created, stable and happy and  _ himself _ .

He hardly gets to the Gas City.

It's enough to discourage him from trying again. It's enough to have him submit to the Infestation once again, to take the easy route and let himself get puppeted by Lephantis, to love and be loved, even if the return isn't entirely guarenteed. He has a purpose, and he is to finish it. It is his end of the deal.

He is left tired, unsatisfied by the MOAs that come to his aid as he lifts himself from the floor. He cannot hear their tone without fear of a single mistake drawing their ire. He cannot hear Lephantis's worry without the venom starting to linger within it, the hesitation in its many voices.

This is what Alad was trying to avoid. It makes his eyes go dull, his stride hesitant and timid once more, no longer one of power and security. He wants to be loved, he needs to be loved, to be left for the wolves once again would ruin what little he had left and that wouldn't do. He had a taste of endless validation, and he would do anything, everything, to get it back. He couldn't bear to lose what he had again.

Just as he's done again and again, Alad will make do with what he's given, and he will create something from the rubble of his failure. He continues to work, he continues to care for his strain despite their fading validation, until he creates something beautiful and grotesque and  _ horrific _ , and finds the right subject to test on.

And he'd find one. Just as he did with the Zanuka project, he'd find one.


End file.
